Resolute
by Ellyanah
Summary: While magic is wielded through belief and skill, the wizarding-world is shaped by goals and ambitions.


**A/N:** Hello everyone, _Resolute_is Book II of the **_Bedrock_** trilogy. Books I through III will respectively cover the Tom Riddle era, the Marauder era, and finally, the Harry Potter era. **_Bedrock_** is AU, and while some of the story may be congruent with canon, motives will always be original. Books I and II will be published simultaneously, because it is possible to read one without reading the other. I, Ellyanah, will be writing Book II_, _while Pouf will provide Book I under the poufellyanah penname. Thus, depending on your preference in writing styles, you may decide to read one or both.

_**Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, Snape and Sirius would not have died alone, trapped and miserable. **_

_**By Ellyanah,**_

_**Betaed by Pouf**_

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**Resolute**

_Resolute. Adj. To be admirably purposeful, determined and unwavering._

**Chapter one: Goals and Purposes**

Spinner's End was not a normal home. _Normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected._

Truthfully, according to this definition, very little in his life was normal.

_Aberrant. Departing from an accepted standard._ The word was appropriate. His home and his life were aberrant. The "normal", "typical" family was middle-class, nuclear and loving. And they had a pet; a dog or a cat. This was what people expected, and deviance from that norm was … abnormal. The people who lived at Spinner's End did not fit that mold. For one thing, the house was in disrepair. Considering the middle class neighborhood it disfigured, this in itself would be enough for the family living within to be considered atypical by the neighbors.

_ Family: a person or people related to one and so to be treated with a special loyalty or intimacy._ That definition did not fit_. Family: group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. _Much better. Or worse, depending on one's perspective.

The family within was indeed atypical, much more so than the neighbors would ever know. It was not the norm for a household to contain a witch. It was outright strange for a pureblood witch from a respectful and influential family to marry a muggle. The fact that said witch had not used magic in a number of years was … unexpected. Her staunch refusal to leave the man who had broken her wand was most singular. Considering that the man was an abusive drunk, whose only redeeming feature was his perfectly average features, her loyalty was perversely misplaced.

The third inhabitant of this abnormal dwelling was no less unusual. Tall, scrawny, with a hooked nose and greasy hair, Severus himself did not look like one expected a child to look. None of his features were regular or normal. But his appearance was hardly the strangest thing about him. If he had to hazard a guess, he would say that what really struck people as abnormal was his behavior.

As the child of a drunkard, they expected him to be rebellious, withdrawn and nasty. And indeed, he had no problem admitting to himself that he was all of those things. After all, why should he be friendly to the condescending twits who deigned to offer him advice or ask him—the child of a known abusive alcoholic—"what's wrong?" As though it was not wretchedly obvious. He had neither time nor patience for senseless, useless chatter.

No, certainly, in these things he met their expectations. They could be assured that all their attempts to _help_ the _poor boy_ would be met with vicious refusals. That, they expected and even welcomed; they could be continue to commend themselves for their kindness without ever having to do anything.

Where he most uncomfortably departed from their premade image of who he ought to be was in his refusal to be ordinary in anything at all. While he did not fit the norm of middle class English children, they thought he _ought_ to fit the one for ruffian children from _unfortunate_ homes. He ought to be coarse, vulgar, delinquent, stupid and rowdy. Instead, he was precise, meticulous, knowledgeable, dedicated, articulate and _frightfully_ intelligent.

Since his _unfortunate_ background and features were unalterable and prevented him from ever truly conforming to muggle or wizardly societies, he would place his sights beyond normality; he would be extraordinary.

_Extraordinary_: _very unusual or remarkable… _or _unusually great._

Glancing at the clock, Severus carefully closed the heavy dictionary. The evening was well on its way, so the library would be closing soon… And the librarian was one of the few people he could not afford to alienate. He stretched cautiously, bones popping from ten hours spent in the rather uncompromising library chair. He reverently placed the dictionary back on its dusty shelf and slowly made his way out of his favorite sanctuary. Upon nearing the front desk, he gave a curt nod to the librarian, who acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow.

As he crossed the threshold, he was slapped by the disgustingly humid and excruciatingly hot air. Yet another reason why he preferred to spend his summer in the confines of the library. From the corner of his eyes, he spied a _slightly_ more pressing reason for his particular habit.

Most of the neighborhood kids had learned that he was not an easy target for bullying. They could mock him, ostracize him, but he would not put up with direct insults or physical threats from his peer group. He may not be able to physically stand up to his _father_, but he could definitively do so against other children. At nine, Severus had abundant experience in dodging blows, and had no naïve ideal about fighting fair. After all, in a fair world, he would not be put in these situations so very often.

However, this particular group of dunderheads possessed neither sufficient intellect nor memory to desist from their ill-fated behavior. Nevertheless, the fact that he would prevail in the end did not make any more appealing the bruises he would most likely accumulate in the process. Thus, Severus rapidly made his way through the labyrinth of alleys in order to lose his potential assailants.

His feet automatically carried him to the park. Despite his empty stomach, he was in no hurry to head _home_.

The park was nicely shaded by century old trees. More importantly, none of his tormentors would come here, as it was _uncool. _ Severus was perpetually perplexed by the diverse, truly random and almost infinite amount of behaviors that were deemed "_uncool"_ by his peers. They restricted themselves from doing numerous interesting, rewarding activities for this ill-founded reason. He lost count of the number of times he saw a child his age prevent a display of **genuine** parental affection in order avoid being labeled as _uncool_. Severus could not imagine ever considering doing so. In their place, he would… He would not think of it. It was useless.

Sitting on a bench in a remote corner of the playground, he withdrew a worn notebook from his equally worn backpack. Quickly, his pen began to fly over its surface, covering it in his spidery writing. Being underage meant that he could not practice magic, but he could most certainly study its theory and inner workings.

As was often the case, Severus lost track of time while exploring the repercussions of magic in the physical world. Magic was…though he feared appearing redundant, he could only describe magic as such: magic was magical. In the non-magical world, laws of physics, when established, were unbendable. Inalterable and restrictive. A certain set of events, given certain set of specific relevant laws unavoidably lead to a specific outcome. Cause, consequence. Action, reaction.

In a world where magic did not exist, Severus would not have had a chance to be more than merely what his genes and environment made him. Illusions of free will be damned.

But throw magic into the equations and the possibilities were limitless. Established laws of physics could be defied. With magic on his side, he could… _fly._

_Merlin, she's flying!_

If there was one thing growing up with Tobias Snape had taught him, it was to always be aware of his surroundings, no matter how focused he was on the matter at hand. Thus, despite his rather enthused contemplations, Severus was able to see a certain red-haired girl in a white sundress defy gravity and fly out of her swing. Well, perhaps fly was not the appropriate word. Her movement more closely resembled the effect he would imagine a weightless charm would have had if it had been cast just prior to her jump out of the ascending swing. But enough semantics, she had defied gravity. It was magic.

Of all the muggle-born persons to perform magic, it had to be Lily Evans. Beautiful, sweet, humble and nice; Evans was all an upper-middle class child ought to be. And thus, she was perfect.

_Perfect:_ _having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be._

Severus, himself, had no desire or ability to be perfect. After all, it was impossible for him to ever accomplish such a feat. He could… no, would be extraordinary, but never perfect. He…

…could not understand why she was heading towards him. Never in all their years in the same primary school had she approached him. Perhaps he had been staring? Well he…

"Hello. My name is Lily. Nice to meet you," the sweet, slightly high-pitched voice, cut threw his musings. Miss Evans was staring at him most likely awaiting some kind of answer or acknowledgement. What should he say? 'Hello, nice to meet you. You know, despite the fact that you are perfect, and well adjusted, and therefore have never bothered to acknowledge me or my existence in the past, I would like us to be friends, because as far as normal people go, you are rather perfect, and you have magic, so I would like—love desperately—for us to be friends.' Yes, he could see that going _well_.

"Um," the embarrassed sound interrupted his thoughts. Evans was now shifting awkwardly. He supposed he really ought to say something. But…

"I suppose you're shy," she squeaked, and then continued in a more confident voice. "It's okay. Lots of people are shy. Want to tell me about what you're writing in that notebook?" For his part, Severus wondered how she could say so many words with so little breathing time. Perhaps, he could answer at least this.

"Well, Evans," he began, only to find himself quickly interrupted by an insistent reminder to "call me Lily." Though delayed, Severus valiantly stumbled his way through explaining his belief on magical theory to the muggleborn witch. Quickly though, he forgot just who he was speaking to, his enthusiasm for the subject matter overcoming his reluctance.

"… and this is why I believe that the traditional view of a magical limit is unfounded; the observed limitations are based on conventional and mistaken expectations."

Had he just talked for fifteen minutes without interruption, explaining his views on the theory of magic to a muggleborn who was most probably not aware magic existed? Merlin help him, she must think he was insane.

"Wow, you have such a great imagination," she said in an existed whisper. "I never heard someone go into such details about make-believe. But you're right, if magic existed, I would love it to be like you describe. Rules would make it so much less… magical."

Nine, they were nine. He was not crazy, merely imaginative… right. Less magical, she says. Well that was rather accurate and …interesting.

Before he knew it, the two were engaged in a highly hypothetical conversation about what ought to be the nature of magic if it was to exist. Though a bit conventional and too fixated on imposing some kind of preconceived notion on the possibilities afforded by magic, Lily Evans was a ... _decent_ conversationalist.

However, the conversation was quickly becoming restricted by its hypothetical nature. But perhaps he could show her that he was not merely whimsical in his talks of magic.

Severus placed his pen between them on the bench, and asked Evans… no Lily, to be attentive. He focused his attention on it, gathering his will and his strength, **_believing _**that it would work. After a few moments, the young red-head began to fidget impatiently. Just as she seem about to lose her patience and comment on his inactivity, the pen started to levitate.

That day, Severus accomplished two very extraordinary feats. He performed wandless, wordless magic, and he, a greatly unusual boy, befriended a perfectly normal girl.

* * *

Years later, Petunia Evans would still regret the day she goaded her sister into going to talk to the weird, scrawny, greasy kid.

For from that day on, perfect Lily Evans was magical.

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